Alexey Alexandrovitch
was walking about his room with his hands behind his back,
thinking of just what Stepan Arkadyevitch had been discussing
with his wife.

"I'm not interrupting you?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, on the
sight of his brother-in-law becoming suddenly aware of a sense of
embarrassment unusual with him. To conceal this embarrassment he
took out a cigarette case he had just bought that opened in a new
way, and sniffing the leather, took a cigarette out of it.

"No. Do you want anything?" Alexey Alexandrovitch asked without
eagerness.

"Yes, I wished...I wanted...yes, I wanted to talk to you," said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, with surprise aware of an unaccustomed
timidity.

This feeling was so unexpected and so strange that he did not
believe it was the voice of conscience telling him that what he
was meaning to do was wrong.

Stepan Arkadyevitch made an effort and struggled with the
timidity that had come over him.

"I hope you believe in my love for my sister and my sincere
affection and respect for you," he said, reddening.

Alexey Alexandrovitch stood still and said nothing, but his face
struck Stepan Arkadyevitch by its expression of an unresisting
sacrifice.

"I intended...I wanted to have a little talk with you about my
sister and your mutual position," he said, still struggling with
an unaccustomed constraint.

Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled mournfully, looked at his
brother-in-law, and without answering went up to the table, took
from it an unfinished letter, and handed it to his
brother-in-law.

"I think unceasingly of the same thing. And here is what I had
begun writing, thinking I could say it better by letter, and
that my presence irritates her," he said, as he gave him the
letter.

Stepan Arkadyevitch took the letter, looked with incredulous
surprise at the lusterless eyes fixed so immovably on him, and
began to read.

"I see that my presence is irksome to you. Painful as it is to
me to believe it, I see that it is so, and cannot be otherwise.
I don't blame you, and God is my witness that on seeing you at
the time of your illness I resolved with my whole heart to forget
all that had passed between us and to begin a new life. I do not
regret, and shall never regret, what I have done; but I have
desired one thing--your good, the good of your soul--and now I
see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what will give
you true happiness and peace to your soul. I put myself ent